More than half — 54% — of the respondents said they had experienced sexual harassment at work as defined by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and about half said they experienced harassment at the entry level.

Even with national media attention paid to the problem of women's harassment in the workplace, just 41% of respondents said they felt their employer has proactively addressed the issue. If blatantly sexually harassed, 82% of respondents said they would report it to their company's human resources department.

“While these are all critically important actions that we need to take seriously, the truth is they are often much easier said than done," Professional Dimensions Director Johannah Karstedt St. John said in a news release with the results. "Historically, they have not led to change consistently enough for many women to believe they are worth the risk. The cultural power structures that foster sexual harassment are the same ones that make us think twice about speaking up.”

Professional Dimensions President Karen Vernal said her best advice to women in the workplace is to build strong professional relationships that will offer support during difficult situations. Vernal believes those powerful relationships are formed through her group.

“We are asking ourselves, ‘What do we do next?’ " Vernal said in the release. "The current recommendations to address this issue are not enough. We don’t have clear answers. Instead, we are inviting our members and the community to engage in the conversation in order to learn what might, in fact, be ‘the what next.’ Our program series will both educate and invite our collective wisdom in response to this cultural, destructive issue.”

The group is hosting a series of events, "Uncovering Sexual Harassment." The next event, "Scenarios of Truth," is at 11:30 a.m. May 9 at the Wisconsin Club.

About one-third of the group's membership — 113 women — responded to an anonymous online survey about experiences on the job. Professional Dimensions' survey was the same one administered to Tempo Milwaukee members last year.

The idea to administer the survey was to diversify the data set from the original set of respondents. While Tempo's members are women who hold executive-level titles, Professional Dimensions comprises women from all career levels.

Still, the results from the small set of opt-in respondents cannot be generalized to the experience for all women in Milwaukee. Because a woman could be a member of both groups, the data reported here is just from Professional Dimensions members. The baseline results were similar to those provided by Tempo's membership.